Beauty in the beast: Sanjoy Narayan writes on the joys of Deafheaven’s sonic paradox

The San Francisco band formed in 2010 merges harsh black metal with dreamy shoegaze, to create music that is simultaneously punishing and beautiful.

I’ll admit it upfront: I’m not typically drawn to the thunderous chaos of metal.

The cover art for Roads to Judah (2011).

This might seem odd coming from someone who has lived for nine years in Finland, a country that produces more metal bands per capita than almost anywhere else on earth. While my Nordic compatriots have given the world Nightwish, Children of Bodom and countless other such legends, the genre’s reputation for unrelenting aggression has always felt more like an endurance test than musical enjoyment.

So, some years ago, when a friend insisted I try a genre called blackgaze, I was sceptical. Then I heard Deafheaven’s Sunbather (2013), and suddenly everything I thought I knew about heavy metal was turned upside-down.

Deafheaven, a San Francisco band that emerged in 2010, has just released its sixth album, Lonely People with Power, which makes this a good time to examine how they became one of the most fascinating paradoxes in contemporary music.

Their latest, released on March 28 via Roadrunner Records, marks what critics are calling a triumphant return to their blackgaze roots, after 2021’s more shoegaze-leaning Infinite Granite. (Shoegaze is a genre in which the sounds of different instruments and vocals are dreamily blurred; blackgaze blends this with elements of black metal, an even more aggressive sub-genre of heavy metal.)

What makes Deafheaven so compelling is not just their technical prowess — though Kerry McCoy’s guitar work is genuinely breathtaking — but also the genius with which they reconcile two seemingly incompatible musical universes.

On the one hand, there are black metal’s foundational elements: George Clarke’s raw, screamed vocals that sound like they’re being torn from his throat while he is tortured; Daniel Tracy’s punishing blast beats; and those signature tremolo-picked guitars that create walls of beautiful aggression. On the other, there is the dreamy shoegaze world in which melody drifts like smoke, and emotions wash over one in gentle waves.

The band’s genius lies in understanding that both genres are fundamentally about creating overwhelming emotional experiences. Black metal seeks to overwhelm through intensity; shoegaze through immersion. Deafheaven has found a sweet spot where the two approaches converge, creating music that can be simultaneously punishing and beautiful, often within the same song.

Lonely People with Power showcases this duality between its tracks too. Magnolia and Revelator deliver the riff-heavy aggression metalheads crave. Heathen and The Garden Route incorporate cleaner vocals and the signature dreamy soundscapes that made albums such as Sunbather so revolutionary. This is music that demands one’s attention and rewards it with layers of melody that reveal themselves gradually. It feels something like watching a sunrise after a storm.

The album benefits from the creative tensions within the band too. While vocalist Clarke and guitarist McCoy remain the core songwriting partnership, guitarist Shiv Mehra’s influence shouldn’t be underestimated. Mehra, who also fronts the side project Heaven’s Club alongside drummer Daniel Tracy, brings in additional melodic sensibilities that help link Deafheaven’s more experimental impulses with their metal foundation.

Heaven’s Club, incidentally, offers a fascinating glimpse into Mehra’s creative range; their sound leans more toward indie rock and dreampop, indicating how these musicians think beyond genre boundaries.

What drew me to Deafheaven initially weren’t their metal credentials but their emotional honesty. When Sunbather became the best-reviewed album of 2013 on Metacritic — a remarkable achievement for any metal album — it wasn’t because they had perfected some technical formula. It was because they had found a way to make extreme music feel genuinely cathartic rather than merely aggressively confrontational.

The album dealt with themes of isolation, depression and transcendence with a sophistication that was beyond typical metal tropes.

This emotional complexity continues in Lonely People with Power, where the band tackles trauma, love and existential questioning across 12 tracks that feel both intimate and epic. The album’s hour-long runtime might seem daunting, but the band’s dynamic range keeps one engaged; they know when to push and when to pull back, when to attack and when to caress.

For newcomers to Deafheaven’s catalogue, three albums serve as essential entry points. Start with Sunbather, which remains their masterpiece and the album that essentially defined blackgaze for a generation. Its opening track Dream House is a perfect seven-minute encapsulation of everything that makes the band special. Next, try New Bermuda (2015), which refined the band’s approach, while adding more traditional metal elements. Finally, turn to Infinite Granite (2021), where they largely abandon screamed vocals for clean singing, proving they are not bound by any one template.

Deafheaven remains polarising: metal purists sometimes dismiss them as too accessible, while mainstream audiences can still find them too abrasive. Perhaps that’s precisely why they matter. In an era of increasing genre-fragmentation, they have created something genuinely new by largely rejecting such boundaries. They have shown that metal can be beautiful without losing its power, and that beauty can be intense and yet gentle.

Lonely People with Power is evidence that Deafheaven continues to evolve while staying true to their core vision. It is an album that works whether one is a long-time metalhead or someone like me who stumbled into this world through curiosity rather than allegiance.

In a musical landscape often divided between the brutal and the beautiful, Deafheaven offers a reminder that the most powerful art can emerge from an embrace of two extremes.

The happy black-metal band, as they are sometimes called, has once again proven that contradiction can be the most honest form of expression.

(To write in with feedback, email sanjoy.narayan@gmail.com)